And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair Is the million-coloured bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky: I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. Keats was of humble birth, and was at first apprenticed to a surgeon. He became an ardent student, and in classical mythology he found the first stimulant to the strong poetic power which he possessed. His genius was fervent and luxuriant, but untrained. His early death prevented his realising the promise given in the exquisite beauty of the poems he has left. TO AUTUMN. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run: To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swathe and all its twinèd flowers; And sometime, like a gleaner, thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they : Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies: ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne : Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. THE poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury,—he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. |